attribute

An attribute is a quality or characteristic given to a person, group, or some other thing. Your best attribute might be your willingness to help others, like when you stopped traffic so the duck family could cross the street.

Attribute comes from the Latin verb attribuere, which is made up the prefix ad, meaning "to," and tribuere meaning "give or bestow." As a verb, to attribute is to give credit, like if you attribute the A on your test to all that hard studying. In Greek and Roman mythology an attribute will often stand in for a character such as Zeus's lightning bolt or Poseidon's trident.

the earliest eon in the history of the Earth from the first accretion of planetary material (around 4,600 million years ago) until the date of the oldest known rocks (about 3,800 million years ago); no evidence of life

(Roman Catholic Church) Roman priest who became bishop of Milan; the first Church Father born and raised in the Christian faith; composer of hymns; imposed orthodoxy on the early Christian church and built up its secular power; a saint and Doctor of the Church (340?-397)

a Christian believed to be of Cappadocian descent who became bishop of the Visigoths in 341 and translated the Bible from Greek into Gothic; traditionally held to have invented the Gothic alphabet (311-382)

(psychoanalysis) a personality characterized by meticulous neatness and suspicion and reserve; said to be formed in early childhood by fixation during the anal stage of development (usually as a consequence of toilet training)